Job 3:1-21 ▼

1 After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.

2 And Job spoke, and said:

3 Let the day perish wherein I was born, And the night wherein it was said: 'A man-child is brought forth.'

4 Let that day be darkness; Let not God inquire after it from above, Neither let the light shine upon it.

5 Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own; Let a cloud dwell upon it; Let all that maketh black the day terrify it.

6 As for that night, let thick darkness seize upon it; Let it not rejoice among the days of the year; Let it not come into the number of the months.

7 Lo, let that night be desolate; Let no joyful voice come therein.

8 Let them curse it that curse the day, Who are ready to rouse up leviathan.

9 Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; Let it look for light, but have none; Neither let it behold the eyelids of the morning;

10 Because it shut not up the doors of my [mother's] womb, Nor hid trouble from mine eyes.

11 Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not perish at birth?

12 Why did the knees receive me? And wherefore the breasts, that I should suck?

13 For now should I have lain still and been quiet; I should have slept; then had I been at rest--

14 With kings and counsellors of the earth, Who built up waste places for themselves;

15 Or with princes that had gold, Who filled their houses with silver;

16 Or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been; As infants that never saw light.

17 There the wicked cease from troubling; And there the weary are at rest.

18 There the prisoners are at ease together; They hear not the voice of the taskmaster.

19 The small and great are there alike; And the servant is free from his master.

20 Wherewith is light given to him that is in misery, And life unto the bitter in soul--

21 Who long for death, but it cometh not; And dig for it more than for hid treasures;